


Flaws

by daisybrien



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Nail Polish, Spa Treatments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-07-20
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:42:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4385162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra finds herself an incapable mess when faced with a bottle of nail polish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flaws

Korra had always described herself as a capable person.

There was no doubt that she was someone who would jump right into action confident and strong, her friends in awe of her brashness and spontaneity. She was someone that never backed out of a conflict, someone you expected to be in the middle of one more often than not. She had fought dark spirits and menacing, chaotic rebels and evil, overpowering dictators alike, all with hope in her heart and fight in her fists. No matter what the challenge, you could expect Korra to jump in first without a second glance; a way to solve whatever wills she had. Even when pushed to the brink, the people around her doubtful in her ability, she was nothing less than awe inspiring when she bounced back stronger than ever. She had grown and learned and became an inspiration to the world she had saved and had saved her in return. There was nothing that the avatar was not able to do.

At least, that was what many thought, and its what she sometimes thought herself. 

That was before Asami placed a bottle of nail polish in her hands. 

It takes all of Korra’s concentration to fill in Asami’s big toe, sucking her bottom lip in between her teeth, her brow furrowed and wrinkles forming in her forehead as she paints a glob of bright red onto the smooth nail with shaking hands. It starts to drip to the side, colour bleeding over her cuticle and onto the skin, and in a futile attempt to save it, she swirls the brush from the drop across the nail. It leaves a whirling a pattern on it, leaving it painted with ugly, curly white streaks showing underneath the lacquer, its texture uneven. 

“Crap,” Korra breathes, wincing as she spits the out the word, interrupting the calming music from the gramophone outside in the bedroom. She looks up at Asami, who lies prone in the bathtub, naked body covered by the sweet smelling suds bubbling up like a foam mountain. The only part of her Korra can see besides her feet is her head, hair tied back and cascading over the edge of the porcelain to keep it from getting wet. Her face is covered in green goop – a good kind of goop, Korra knows, thinking of its cool texture against her face, how soft her skin had felt when Asami had wiped it off her face with a serene tenderness – and cucumber slices placed over her eyes almost comically. When there is no reaction from her, no cracks in the green goo to be seen, Korra lets herself release a relieved sigh. 

She turns back to the nail, twirling the brush in between her fingers and accidentally staining her hand with bright red splotches. She brings her face ridiculously close to Asami’s toes, glad she had already spread lotion on them to mask the smell. She positions her hand against the offending foot, brush slowly making its contact with the nail, approaching it inch by inch with a fine meticulousness as Korra attempts to smooth out the uneven coat with a single stroke. 

It becomes apparent to her, while her muscles and movements in bending and combat are as skillful and directed as ever, her small motor skills seem to not share the same delicacy and power as her larger ones. Her fingers tremble with the stroke, paint seeping into the crevices around the nail and outlining the skin around it. Korra hisses through her teeth, then lets out a frustrated groan, surrendering herself to Asami’s teasing as she reaches for the cotton balls piled beside her, wiping up the mess she made.

Korra glances up again, watching as Asami’s face shifts under her mask, one corner of her lips quirking up in a lopsided grin. 

“You okay there, Korra?”

“Be quiet,” Korra mutters, leaning in closer to get the best view of the toe she can as she carefully wipes the edges. The cotton dabs up some of the paint on the nail instead, and Asami’s skin around it looks inflamed from the red tinge the pigment leaves, making Korra click her teeth at the horrible job. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“From the sound of it,” Asami sighs, bending her head back to stretch her neck, “you’re going to need a lot more than concentration to help you out.”

“Of course I do,” Korra says, “and it includes your silence.” She grabs the toe in between her fingers, grimacing as she looks over her amateur handiwork. Instead of a uniform colour, streaks all pointing in one direction, it’s messy pattern tells of Korra’s unsteady hand, blotchy and bumpy. She decides to move on to the next nail, hoping she can fix it with the next coat of polish.

“How does it look so far?” Asami says, amusement dripping from each word.

“Don’t ask,” Korra says. She adjusts the brush again, dipping it into its bottle before dabbing the dripping bristles against the nail. It makes a massive glob on contact, bleeding off the nail and over the skin surrounding the nail as she moves the brush down towards her; she had forgotten to wipe the excess polish on the inside of the bottle’s rim, paint dripping onto both their skin and onto the white tiles in between Korra’s feet.

Her head darts up when she hears Asami laugh, giggles bubbling from her mouth at the feeling of the cold brush against her skin, then Korra’s frantic hands as she wipes away the mess probably dripping from her foot and onto the floor – and onto the tub, but Korra would never tell her that, wiping it up before it could stain. 

“You’re really not good at this, are you?” Asami says.

“Hey, I haven’t done this before,” Korra protests, “and I think I’m doing pretty well for my first time.”

“It’s not supposed to be that hard,” Asami says. “Do I have to remind you that the nail polish is supposed to go on the nail again?”

Korra furrows her eyebrows deeper, puffing out her cheeks in frustration before realizing that Asami can’t see her under the cucumbers covering her eyes. She looks down at her feet sheepishly, wriggling her own freshly painted, bright orange toes, courtesy of Asami. She curls them in and out, still unaccustomed to the coolness of the gloss on her toenails, still sticky and wet, the cotton Asami had wedged between her toes to keep her from smudging them starting to grow itchy.

“It’s not my fault I’m not good at this,” Korra grumbles. “You know I’ve never been as interested in this stuff as you are.”

“I know that,” Asami says. “I just didn’t want us to miss out on our spa day.”

“I didn’t even care about it in the first place.”

“You seemed to care when the spa cancelled on us,” Asami sings. Korra puffs out her cheeks again, placing another glob onto the next nail and once again failing miserably. They were both disappointed when their phone rang that morning, the owner of the spa cancelling their appointment frantically after a badgermole had dug its way into basement nail salon, continuing on its warpath up the building and trashing their massage studio. When they turned on the radio for the morning news half an hour later, the anchor had already been interviewing one of the traumatized employees who had been working in the now flooded water therapy department during the accident, his clipped and speedy voice growing loud and dramatic at every pause in the story.

“We had already planned that out,” Korra says, “had booked the entire day for it.”

“Well you weren’t complaining when I was the one pampering you in this tub,” Asami says. One hand reveals itself from the mess of bubbles in the tub, lifting a cucumber off one eye as she raises her head to look pointedly at Korra, raising one eyebrow as she gives her a smug grin. “And neither was I.”

“You’re right,” Korra says. “I shouldn’t be complaining after you treated me so well.”

Asami’s smug expression disappears from her face, replaced with one of pleasant surprise, eyes wide, before breaking into another large smile. “Are you being sarcastic with me?”

“Of course not,” Korra assures. She starts wiping away the mess of the fourth nail, redoing it before moving on to finish the foot. “You pampered me, and now it’s my turn to do the same to you. It only seems fair.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Anything for my girlfriend,” Korra sighs, leaning down to kiss Asami’s foot, her face twisting when once she realizes the absurdity of the action. The disgust is short lived, Korra jumping as Asami gives a high pitched squeak, jerking in the tub, the cucumbers falling off her face and into the bath water with a soft plunk. 

“Don’t do that!” Asami squeals. “You know I’m-“ She ends the sentence there, settling back into the tub, disgruntled.

Korra’s face breaks into a mischievous grin. “You’re what Asami?”

The two of them look at each other in silence, each with their own pointed stare. Asami widens her eyes at Korra, stone faced and severe, raising her eyebrows in a threat, or a dare. Korra answers it with another grin, her fingertips brushing over the soles of Asami’s feet, nails raking over the skin.

Asami gives a shrill shriek in response, madly thrashing about in the bathtub as she tries to escape from Korra’s grip, water sloshing over the brim and splashing onto the floor. Korra only pulls her closer, fingers working frantically, forcing pained laughter from her throat.

“Please stop!” She gasps between hiccups, trying to pull herself away again. “You’re going to have to redo my toes again.”

“It’ll be my pleasure,” Korra smirks, laughing as she watches Asami move desperately, dodging every kick she aims at her ribs.

Asami gives out another ear splitting cry, retaliating as her arm slices over the surface of the water. Korra’s amused laughter is cut short at the taste of soapy water in her throat, blinding her as it strikes her in the face. She stops, coughing as she wipes the suds and wetness from her face, water dripping from her hair. The two fall into silence again, Asami sitting rigidly as her girlfriend sputters in front of her. 

It’s Korra’s turn to give her warning stare, her eyes boring into Asami’s from her perch by her feet – which miraculously had survived the assault of tickling hands and flying bathwater, polish still in its messy but complete state. Then, Korra grins, giving the slightest twitch of the lips as she raises one hand, palm down, raising a pillar of water out of the tub ever so slowly.

“I’m sorry!” Asami cries, curling into the side of the bath, cowering in the shadow of the ever growing tower of water in front of her, ready to strike. “Please don’t!”

Despite her protests, Korra keeps going, raising her hand higher in her silence, grin growing wider with each passing second.

“Korra, I swear, if even a drop of water gets on my hair I will not give you that massage I promised.”

Korra’s hands stop at the words, looking away as she weighs her options. Then, she lowers her hand, letting the water drop back into the tub again, bubbles bobbing in the rippling water. Asami gives a sigh of relief, leaning back in the tub again.

“Fine,” Korra sighs. “But only because I love you.”

Korra hears Asami give a grunt of satisfaction, grinning as she settles into the tub, closing her now cucumber-less eyes. She turns back to her feet again, sighing as she sees the mess that was left of her hands after their fight, red smudges peppered over her dark skin. She paints each nail in silence, going through the motions, slowly and surely making a mess of Asami’s toes. Her hope in masking her horrible skills as she applies more layers dwindles with each passing minute, each toe still blotchy, the colour uneven and bleeding, seeping into the cracks of the skin, forming twisting, red mazes.

Korra applies the last layer of polish with a sinking feeling of dread, sticking cotton between Asami’s toes and screwing the blasted bottle of nail polish closed. “I think I’m done.”

Asami opens one eye, looking down at her with a smirk. “How does it look?”

Korra shrugs, letting out an unsure and weary groan. Asami chuckles softly, sitting up in the tub.

“I guess I’ll just have to be the judge of your wonderful handiwork then,” Asami says. “Let’s drain the tub and wipe this stuff off my face, first.”

Korra complies, reaching into the bathtub, fishing around at the bottom before pulling the plug from the drain. She gets up, her gait awkward as she gets used to walking with cotton between her toes. She grabs a cloth from the towel rack, using it to wipe the lotion from Asami’s face, trying to emulate the same gentleness she had when doing the same. The water slowly sinks out of the bathtub, gurgling as it spirals down into the drain, the level in the tub dwindling. The bubbles start to disappear, Asami’s body beginning to surface, and it takes almost all of Korra’s willpower to keep her eyes on Asami’s face, concentrating on revealing pale skin from underneath the face mask. She gives Asami a chaste kiss on the lips once her face is clear, the tub empty.

Asami give a soft moan from deep in her throat, breaking the kiss as she lifts herself up. “Help me out?”

Korra gets up, offering a hand that Asami graciously takes. She helps pull Asami up, steadying her when her feet almost slip on the wet porcelain. Asami steps out of the tub, towering over Korra in all her naked glory, leaving her a blushing, blubbering mess.

Korra looks down at her much prettier toenails, jerking another towel from the rack and holding it out for Asami. She doesn’t look up until Asami is finished drying and has it wrapped over herself, her fingers wriggling by her sides humbly. 

“This wouldn’t be the first time you have seen me naked, you realize that,” Asami laughs. She wraps her bathrobe around herself, tying it shut before lifting Korra’s chin to look at her. 

“I know,” Korra sputters. She can feel the heat in her cheeks, Asami smiling as her face grows pink. “I just wanted to give you some semblance of privacy.”

“Well you don’t need to do that,” Asami says. “And there is no need to be so flustered.”

“I beg to differ,” Korra murmurs, before realizing that Asami’s focus had shifted, her eyes fixed on her toes. She rocks back and forth on the balls of her feet, trying to stifle her grin as she analyzes the glistening red paint under the bathroom light. She gives a little snort, counting the splotches of it on her skin, the smears on her nails. 

“It’s horrible,” Korra groans, hanging her head in shame as she looks down at the mess she had made of Asami’s toes.

“No it’s not,” Asami says slowly. “It’s pretty good for your first time.”

“I can wipe it off before it dries.”

“There is no need,” Asami laughs. She brings her fingers to rest under Korra’s chin, lifting her head to look at, blue eyes wide and sad. She smiles, kissing Korra on the forehead, then the cheek, then on the lips. “It’s perfect.”

“You don’t have to lie, you know,” Korra grumbles. Despite her dejection, her own smirk starts to bloom.

“You will have many more opportunities to improve,” Asami states. She turns Korra around, leading her out of the bathroom with her hands on her shoulders, kneading into the perfect muscles of her shoulders. “But first, maybe we can get those massages done?”

Korra groans at the pressure, her head falling back against Asami’s chest, eyes closing before she answers with a soft moan.

“Yes please.”


End file.
